Jacques Ysaye, creator of Whalers anthem 'Brass Bonanza,' dies at 94

Hartford Whalers captain Kevin Dineen waves to the fans Sunday, April 13, 1997, after he briefly addressed them at the end of the Whalers final game in Hartford, Conn. The Whalers defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 to end their season and their stay in Hartford. (AP Photo/Richard Mei)

The song begins and it immediately registers in your head. The first few notes play and the next three minutes of your life is now booked. You have no choice as you’ll be humming along with a tune that’s been ingrained in your hockey soul.

That’s what “Brass Bonanza” means to a hockey fan, young or old. Maybe you’re old enough to remember hearing the tune during a Whalers game in their WHA or NHL days. Perhaps you’re too young for that but wore out your controller playing NHL ’94 with Jacques Ysaye’s creation playing in the background.

So how did this tune arranged by a Belgian composer end up as the anthem of the Whalers?

From Jacobs’ 2010 piece:

After Say sold the song to a musical library, [George] Ducharme, then involved in marketing with the Whalers, was looking for something to liven up the Civic Center. Announcers Bill Rasmussen and Bob Neumeier did an LP of the 1975-76 season highlights and used a musical bridge they got from D&K Sound in Wethersfield. One Sunday Ducharme had a bunch of people over his place. The record was played. And, voila, Ducharme knew he had something.

“Three notes and everybody knows what is,” Ducharme, who still serves as special assistant to [Howard] Baldwin, has told me. “It’s a marketing dream. Three notes …”

“Brass Bonanza” had a solid 15-year run with the Whalers before Brian Burke was hired as the team’s new general manager in 1992. Because the song probably didn’t elicit enough truculence, he had the team stop playing it during games.

“I did because there were players who were embarrassed by it,” Burke told NHL.com in 2008. “An NHL team with a fight song, they were embarrassed by it. As soon as I went to the NHL they put it back in. No big deal.”

Four years later, after Peter Karmanos worked a deal to move the franchise to Carolina, the Whalers played their final game on April 13, 1997. As the players and fans said goodbye inside the Hartford Civic Center, “Brass Bonanza” played on.